


Dareth Shiral

by geekyjez



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Death, F/M, Funeral, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, burial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:40:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3197462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekyjez/pseuds/geekyjez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fic. The Dalish Warden struggles to put her friend to rest, thinking back on the life they shared together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dareth Shiral

She had no oak staff for him to lean his heavy weight upon as he followed Falon’din’s path. She had no cedar branch for him to use to distract the ravens of Dirthamen. These things could be obtained, but it would take time. Time they did not have. The Blight would not wait. She had no tree to plant for him, so she sought out the largest one she could find nearby. Its branches were sturdy, healthy, broad arms reaching to the Heavens.

It was a worthy tree to mark a grave.

Bodahn did not argue with her when she told him to hand over the shovel, nor did he ask for coin in exchange.

She speared into the dirt. Once. Twice. The earth was tightly packed and cold. Difficult to displace. The muscles in her shoulders were already starting to burn as she worked, but she did not stop. She made no complaints. She embraced the hollow feeling that bore into her gut, her face drawn and heavy but lacking in tears. She could not cry now. She had a job to do. Her mind wandered as she worked. Moments. Memories. Parts of a life that was no longer her own.

_“You can’t be Andruil’s favorite. You’re a boy.” She taunted, sticking out her tongue._

_He was only a child of seven then. Unruly blond hair and a ruddy face. His eyes narrowed. “I bet I can still kill more rabbits than you.”_

_She smiled at him, her eyes wide and challenging. “Oh really?”_

_It was years before he stopped holding that over her head – the day he proved he was the better hunter. She said it didn’t count. She had clearly killed that last one before it fell into the ravine._

“Do you want help?”

“Go away, Alistair.”

The man shuffled his feet in the dirt, looking down at her. He seemed so much taller when the level of the ground was at her knees. “Are you sure?”

She could hear the guilt in his voice. He had done what he had to do. She froze when she needed to fight. Hesitated when she needed to act. Could not bring herself to loose her arrow even as Tamlen screamed at her to kill him. Alistair’s blade was the one thing that stopped his rampage. She knew it had saved her life. She told herself it would be wrong to blame him.

“This is something I have to do myself.” She said plainly, keeping her head down, focused on her task.

The human watched her for a moment and then quietly walked away.

_“You can’t be serious, falon!” The boy of fourteen years had said, a long and lanky thing, his voice only recently shifting in pitch._

_Yet she was. She grinned broadly, her laughter as mad as the Dread Wolf’s as she flung herself from the rocks, hurtling into the water below in little more than her smalls. That was the summer that Clan Sabrae moved through the southlands, where the lakes and streams were plentiful and the heat in the air made their coolness divine. She had barely broken the surface for breath when his blurring shape crashed down beside her, rocking her body with the concussive wave, leaving her gasping and sputtering as she struggled to keep her head afloat. He bobbed up next to her, chuckling. She lunged, gripping him by the shoulders, dunking him with her weight. He grabbed her sides, pinching and teasing until she was flailing wildly, kicking and gasping, shrieking with laughter only for him to submerge her in return._

_And so they went on, wrestling and pressing, grasping and slipping, until both were red-faced and panting. Limbs tangled as she held onto his shoulders. He kept them both afloat. Then something not quite spoken fell between them._

_That was the summer he kissed her._

_It was a silly thing. A childish peck on the cheek. She had stared at him, surprised, not knowing what to say._

_It mattered little as he quickly pressed her under the water once more and the grappling dance resumed._

The level of the earth was above her waist. Her path downward was a slow one. Slow, but needed. She needed to feel each shovelful, needed to provide a place for him to rest. She could not bury him the way he should be. She could not return him to Sabrae like she wanted to. She wasn’t going to leave him here, alone and exposed.

Her muscles screamed their unheeded protest and she resumed as the camp behind her fell still.

_“What do you think it was like?” He asked, a man of seventeen years, looking up at the stars. A man, but only just. His blood writing had been done only days before. She was anxious for her own. She wanted to become fully Dalish – to wear the markings of their gods, to show the world that she would never submit herself to the shemlen._

_“What?”_

_“Arlathan.” He clarified._

_She rolled over to face him, propping her head up on her hand. She did not speak for a time, studying the way the moonlight fell over his new tattoos. His vallaslin changed his face, but for the better. It spiraled at his cheeks, stretched along his brow. He was wearing his hair shorter now. She was still getting used to it, but it suited him nonetheless. It seemed so strange to see how time had changed him over the passing years. Tamlen was simply Tamlen, as he had always been. The silly boy who chased after her, when not being chased by her. Yet when she stopped to take notice she could see the definition of his jaw where there had once been softer cheeks, the breadth of his shoulders where once he had seemed perpetually slumped. His pale eyes shone in the moonlight, cat-like and reflective. His straight nose. His broad chin. The curve of his ears._

_“Beautiful.” She said quietly._

_He never did catch on that she wasn’t talking about the ancient city in Elvhenan._

She didn’t hear him hop down into the hole beside her. She supposed that should not be surprising. An assassin should always step lightly. She startled when she felt his hand on her shoulder, his other reaching to take the shovel from her.

“I need to do this,” she said quickly, tightening her grip on the tool.

“And you will, my Warden.” His voice was soft. Quiet. “Take a moment to rest. Catch your breath. I will continue until you are ready.”

He pulled gently on the shovel and her hands fell away, sore and blistering. She sat at the edge of the grave, her feet dangling into it, her body feeling heavy as sweat dripped from her brow.

The other elf dug for her without complaint.

_“You’re incorrigible.” He grumbled, a man of twenty, tall and steady and sure of himself._

_She pouted, her eyes playful. “I always thought that’s what you liked about me.”_

_“Who said anything about liking you?” He gave her a sidelong glance but the curve of his lips betrayed his amusement._

_“Everybody knows you’re in love with me Tamlen.” She said, laughing._

_She was joking._

_Though part of her wasn’t._

_“Do they, now?” He asked with a chuckle. “Clearly being seen with you too often is the problem. I’ll have to work better at avoiding that.” He flashed a smile, gripping his bow as he took off running, daring her with a glance over his shoulder. She took the bait, smirking as she gave chase. He was fast, but she knew his movements. He could never run too far ahead. She would always find him again. This game was common between them now. The last time he ran from her, she’d tackled him, rolling and sliding and laughing down a leaf-covered hill, a stumbling pile of awkward limbs and beating hearts. She had wanted to kiss him then, in that brief moment between the tumbling and him lifting himself to his feet. She had wanted to, but she hesitated. She waited too long. The moment slipped past her and she chided herself for losing her nerve._

_She was determined to kiss him this time._

_When she spotted him ahead, his bow was drawn, his face serious. Stoic. She raised her weapon, lining an arrow against the bowstring as she neared._

_“You’re just in time,” he said, keeping his eyes trained forward. “I found these humans lurking in the bushes. Bandits, no doubt.”_

_She eyed the three men cautiously, her resolve hardening as she trained her aim at one of their hearts._

She did not object when Zevran helped her carry the body. Her arms were shaking from exhaustion, even after allowing him to finish digging the grave. He was wordless in his assistance. Not cold, but matter-of-fact. She appreciated that. She didn’t want sympathetic looks or the attempted kind words. She couldn’t bear that now. She needed the numbness that she clung to. A man familiar with death made for good company in that regard.

She lowered herself into the grave, letting the weight of his corpse press down on her shoulders as Zevran handed him down to her. She laid Tamlen on his back, straightened his legs with care, folding his hands against his stomach.

“Get my bow.” She said quietly. She did not look up, but heard the assassin move away as she stared at the body.

A man of twenty one, though only just. Skin blackened and sickly, darkest around his eyes. His lids half-closed despite her attempts, slivers of pale irises, still shining, reflecting the dim beams of light that filtered down to him. His vallaslin could be seen, but barely, a faint stain on his brow. Golden hair now gone. Thin and hollowed cheeks.

Zevran returned, quietly handing down the weapon. She knelt beside Tamlen, taking his hand and wrapping his stiff fingers around it.

It was not an oak staff, but it was something. Something familiar. He did always look his best with a bow in his hand, his graceful fingers pulling back on the string, his breaths stilling as he took aim…

Her hand hurt when the assassin took it, the raw and rubbed flesh stinging as he pulled her out of the grave. She took the shovel again and with weak arms began to fill the hole. She tried not to look at the body as she did. She distanced herself from it, tried to think of this as a task, just like any other. Something that had to be done.

_“I don’t like it in here.”_

_“Scared, falon?” He asked. He was teasing her, but he sounded uneasy, less certain of himself. “Losing your resolve?”_

_“No,” she said defensively. She was not frightened. She could handle some gloomy ruins. But something did not feel right about this place._

_“Weren’t you supposed to be assisting Master Varathorn today?” He asked, peering at her. “How did you end up coming with me?”_

_“I wanted to be with you, of course.” She said with a laugh._

_She was joking._

_Though part of her wasn’t._

_He studied her face a moment, a smile slowly spreading his lips. “I thought that might be the case.” He said softly. “I’m glad.” The tips of her ears felt warm under his gaze and she looked away. He cleared his throat, continuing down the passageway._

_“Maybe we should turn back.” She offered._

_“Just a little further,” he urged her, “I want to see what’s in the room ahead.”_

The sky was blushing, kissed with the colors of early dawn by the time the grave was covered. Zevran stood and watched as she tamped down the last shovelful. She stepped back, staring down at the loose mound.

“I need to be alone now.” She barely gave the words breath, but the assassin understood. He nodded, saying nothing as he slowly walked back to camp.

She stared down at the grave and the numbness fell away from her. She could feel her chest tightening, her eyes hot and stinging as she looked down, finally taking in the finality of it all.

_“Always loved you,” he had choked out. “I’m so sorry.”_

She sank to her knees, her legs too weak, unwilling to hold her up any longer.

He had never said I love you, yet had said it in a thousand ways. In smiles and winks, in his laughter, in his gaze. In years of chasing one another, of laying under the stars, of counting up their kills. It had always lingered there between them, unspoken yet understood.

“Ar lath ma.” She whispered, her throat clenching tightly.

It was over. That life, for her, was gone.

“Dareth shiral, vhenan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Falon – friend  
> Ar lath ma – I love you.  
> Dareth shiral – farewell/safe journey


End file.
